Chapter 19
Out of the Mud and into the Fire

The compression had become to great, and like a giant pop gun Lister popped out of the asteroid via the geyser on the crater's wall.
Like a giant pimple. Popped, Lister flew through the air. "Yeahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhggggggggg!"

The Cat who had been watching the phenomena intently for the last few seconds could only stand stupefied and wonder as Lister flew at him through the air. Lister was closing in the unsuspecting Cat, who was watching the missile like body hurling towards him.

Lister touched down face first into the mud pool in which the Cat had been wading, sliding a good fifty feet and finally coming to a halt at the feet of the Cat. The Cat stood staring down at him, wide eyed in disbelief. Shaking his head back and forth he said, "Anything for attention. Right, Prom Queen Carrie Reject?.

Lister wasn't listening. He couldn't be hearing the Cat correctly. If I am alive, he thought, and I don't die too soon, I'm going to spike all his shampoo bottles with extra strength hair remover.

"Air" Lister whispered in a choking voice, a red fluster covered his face. Zero.
His time had run out.

"What's that buddy? I couldn't quite make it out." The Cat bent over to hear Lister better.

Lister reached around behind the kneeling Cat, and unplucked his small emergency air tank. Before the Cat knew what was going on Lister had plugged it into his emergency access hose, and open the nossel. Life giving air hissed into Lister's filthy space suit, and the blue gray color left Lister's face. Soon a more health shade covered his cheeks.

When he could breath normally he got up and asked the Cat "Where the Smeg have you been? If you hadn't noticed I almost died out here. You better hope my babies are OK." Lister threatened.

"Hey monkey I can't help it if you wanted to play hide and seek. Could I have known you were so good at it? Anyway unless you want to hang around all day, I found something not to far from here."

The Cat held up a charred chunk of leather hat. The hat had flesh color
plastic melted around the edges. Lister took the Hat in his hand gently, as if holding something of the recently dead. He recognized it as the hat Kryten was wearing the last time he saw the mechanoid.

"There's more back round that hill over yonder, I figure we should collect what we can and skidadle. Unless you want us to end up a mud covered permanent additions to this little paradise."

Lister was astonished. Had he always misjudged the Cat?
"Last one to the wreckage is a shiny fat beach ball," yelled the Cat as he
sprinted away from Lister. Forcing him to run as well.
"Bastard," whispered Lister.

When he finally caught up with the Cat he was horrified at what he saw. The Cat sat on top of a large boulder looking off in the distance, all
around the boulder lay Lister's Asteroid Hopper. In hundreds of pieces.
"Hey beach ball," the Cat yelled down to Lister. "Take a look at the other side." The Cat motioned him forward.

Lister stared up at the Cat for several seconds longer than he should have. He knew what he was going to find judging by the wreckage of the bike. The question was, in how many pieces?

Walking around the boulder his mind raced at all the possibilities that may have taken place in which Kryten wouldn't look to much like a scrap heap. The reality of it all was far worse than any he could have imagined.
Debris of mechinoid lay strewn all over the crash site, mixed with pieces
of space bike. As Lister's eyes drifted across the wreckage they were forced to stop and rest on one of the few recognizable parts. Kryten's head.
Lying tilted, eyes open and covered by dust up to his chin, a serene smile still seemed to be seen across his lips. A wave of nausea overwhelmed Lister, and he was force to sit on a near by rock.

"Come on buddy, it's not that bad." Said the Cat. "A little glue, some electrical tape and he'll be as good as new."

Lister's head was buried in his hands, and as his looked up at the Cat
and questioned. "Do you really think so?"

"Hell no! I was just humoring you and all, due to your sensitive condition."
Lister shook his head. "Thanks a smeggen bunch."

"No problem." Smiled the Cat. His large white teeth reflecting the strange light.
"O.K. Maybe it is as bad as it looks. But it could be worse, you could need old jar head here for some life and death surgery or something. Let's get it packed up as quickly as possible and head back to the ship. I for one do not want to spend one more moment on old Fred here than I have to."
A slight tremor shook the ground beneath their feet for a moment.
Fred was stirring. The Cat helped Lister up, after his fall from the planetoid quake and they both started to work. Quickly.
With the help of several collapsable storage containers, and a large rake like device all of Kryten was packed up and being load on to
the bug.

"I hope we get home soon," said the Cat. "I for one have not had a bath for at last three hours. Hell I'm starting to sweat monkey." The Cat shook his head. "This place does not smell right. No siree."
With that the engines fired up and soon Fred would be a memory.
Or so they thought

The black and yellow posted warning sign stated;
"2500 feet to terminal. SLOW Proceed with caution"
Entering through the cargo bay doors entirely too fast the now fueless, drab green, bug shaped ship to surface vessel, Starbug Two was out of control.
The trajectory which the ship entered the landing bay on was a few degrees off, sending the uncontrollable craft careened through a scaffold containing a dozen or so scutters. The scutters had been repairing the landing bay wall which had been damaged during the Bugs last outing.

TERMINAL 1500 FEET
SLOW DOWN
USE LOW GEARS.
Another yellow and black warning sign bleared.
This one was illuminated in an attempt be more forceful.

"Damn thing still pulls to the left." shouted Lister above the squeal of metal against metal as the ships mid section skidded against the interior wall of the cargo bay, scutters bouncing off the plexiglas windshield.

Lister crunched into seventh gear, attempting to slow the craft when he was awkwardly reminded about the cargo both he and the ship now carried.
"What the hell's wrong with you, I thought you said you could land this thing!" Shouted the Cat who had been showering in the habitation deck and was coming through the cockpit door wearing a long pink silk bathrobe with red cuffs, trim, and bunny slippers. His hair in matching towel wrapped like a turban and tucked in the back.

"Cat!" he called out. "I have a yearning for a chicken vindaloo with a beer milkshake you couldn't imagine."

While the Cat fixed his hair he said; "Can't help you there bud." Looking over again Lister continued, "and I need to use the gents really really badly."
"Still drawing a blank buddy." The Cat stopped working on his hair.
"Look let's go through the formality of actually landing the ship in one piece and not wet our keks. We manage those two obstacles, you kill two mice with one stone."

TERMINAL 1000 FEET
SLOW DOWN.
THIS MEANS YOU!
Shouted another helpful sign.

The Cat, after a moment of measuring up the distance, bound through the air through an impossibly small space, landing perfectly into the co-pilots seat, only disturbing the fuzzy dice with the very tip of his towel turban shouted, "Is there anything I could do to help us end up less dead?"

TERMINAL 500 FEET
RUNAWAY SHIP WEBBING
PLEASE BARE LEFT

ALL OTHER TRAFFIC RIGHT
a multi lighted sign displayed, with appropriate blinking lights and arrows.

"Grab the steering wheel and pull back as hard as you can" Yelled Lister as he had been demonstrating for the last 2500 feet. With the Cat's
strength was added to Lister's the ship slowed down with such force that
The Cat's Hair turban became undone blinding him to the entire operation. This was probably for the best.

TERMINAL 100 FEET
BARE RIGHT
In illuminated black and yellow.

RUNAWAY SHIP WEBBING
BARE LEFT
YOU WILL NOT SURVIVE
IF YOU DO NOT
Bathed from behind in a deep red light with a skull and cross bones
silhouette.

Lister and the Cat were screaming when the Bugs auto pilot mechanism engaged and the craft, after another jolt, seemed to freeze in mid air, then started moving ahead again at a much slowed and safer rate. Holly's face came up on the console screen much to the panic stricken duos relief.

''Thanks Hol. Where the smeg have you been? I been trying to get through to you for twenty minutes now."

"Sorry Dave had a bit of a cock up with the receiver, all fixed now," Holly lied. More and more this was becoming the case.

Ever since they had returned home from the Femverse Holly hadn't been the same. Sure he looked like good old Holly, always there for you in a scrap, take care of you in the end he will. But he wasn't. He was a shell of his former self. True for the last one hundred thousand years Holly had been a shadow of his former self. Now he was a shadow of a shell of his former self, which really wasn't that substantial. Holly became more and more absent minded of late.

Actually his mind wasn't present at all.
The whole of Holly's run time all his data banks, all his vast circuitry
were working full capacity on a secret project. So secret holly hadn't even allowed himself to fully know what it was about. One day he would know, In the end they all would know, they couldn't help noticing. For now Holly work to do and no time to dwell on corn silken hair.

In the cargo hold of the now stable Starbug, in six individual storage containers, originally designed to carry ore samples to large for the regular sample pods, lay the remains of Kryten's lifeless body. Within Kryten's torso, the largest remaining intact section of Kryten, very near his groinal attachment socket, something stirred. Slowly the blackness drifted away as the warmth from the ship pulled this ancient relic back into the realm of quantum probability. And one thing is for sure. It's not Archie.