Chapter 25
Babies
Kryten opened his eyes. For a moment he was unsure of his surroundings, and this relieved him. At least he understood his surroundings now, he was on some kind of a vessel, and probably laying on a table with a bright operating light blinding him. Or his eyes weren't where he usually kept them.
The relief was in the fact that he was no longer within himself. Nor was he
within Lister's body either. Now the mechanoid used logic to deduce his whereabouts. "Since I knew where I'm not, I should therefore know where I am."
Kryten sat up in Red Dwarf's Medi Bay. Lister lay unconscious on the observation table along side him, and so did the syringe. Lister was in a white surgical gown, and had a mask on his face. All that showed through white of the gown was the Lister belly. Pete the scutter was there and so was Rimmer.
Holly's image had been replaced on the monitor by an interior shot, of the syringe, through the eyes of the nano that Kryten had originally commandeered. Dozens of micro Krytens filled the fluid and the screen.
"So your back," Rimmer addressed Kryten. "How went your little holiday?
See many old friends?"
"The trip was a success, if that's what your asking sir. Now if you'll excuse me." Kryten lifted the hypo and addressed Holly.
The unconscious body of Lister moved sharply on it's own, and he let out a small yelp.
"Holly would you please be so kind as to give me visual."
On the Medi Bay monitor, showing the image through the eyes of a nano,
a black square appeared in the lower left corner of the screen. After a few moments Holly's face appeared in it.
"Oi dude, how's that?" Holly smiled.
"What do you need visual for?" Rimmer asked. "Holly's just shouting out instructions from a book."
"That may be true," Holly said. But at least if we have visual I can hold up the book and show him pictures when they come up."
"OK, locate the belly button. Go approximately three inches downwards."
"Is this the spot?" Kryten asked, as he pointed to Lister's undulating stomach.
"Yea that's the spot," said Holly. After wiping off the area with a alcohol dipped cotton wad Kryten injected the nanobots into Lister's makeshift womb.
Immediately the image on the monitor changed and the view from a nano became that of the interior of Lister. Rimmer's face screwed up in disgust.
"I thought that Lister was unpleasant to look at from the outside." Rimmer shuttered and fished out a hologramatic bag of popcorn as the Cat then barged in. "Did I miss anything?"
"No, they barely started," munched Rimmer.
"Good," replied the Cat who drew up a seat and removed a pair of opera glasses from within his jacket. "Uuuuuuugly."
"That's what I thought." Rimmer agreed.
"Gentleman please I'm trying to concentrate." Kryten scolded.
The two shut up like caught little schoolboys.
Lister's stomach moved as though something within it bounced off its side.
"I think I can make out some movement in the distance," announced Kryten. Who just discovered, quite by accident, that if he closed one eye with a split screen, he could internally monitor and control the nano he had used earlier, and whose optical monitor view was currently on the screen with Holly.
"The boys seem to be fully developed, but small maybe each five inches in height." said Kryten.
"Hey look I can see them." The Cat said, as the lads came into focus on the monitor. "But what the heck are they doing?"
"I think it's called football, but I can't be sure," helped Rimmer.
The monitor's image was a black and white and somewhat distorted. But the shapes of two miniature boys running about LIster's insides and kicking at something unseen was unmistakable.
"This looks serious," said Holly. "We better get them out as quick as possible."
"Right you are." said Kryten still with one eye closed. "If I you could just relinquish the minor detail of how."
"Use the nanos. Command them to gather some of Lister's extra fatty tissue."
"And do what?" queried Rimmer.
Holly hesitated for a moment then advised "Make football goal nets."
The Cat and Rimmer looked at each other and then at Holly. "Whaaaaaat?" They said it in unison.
"Are you quite sure Holly?" Kryten asked.
"Sure I'm sure, These boys are growing at a strange rate as far as I can tell. It must have something to do with the fact that they were conceived in another universe."
Lister's body convulsed as something seemed to try and burst out of it while Holly talked.
"But a net?" Questioned Rimmer. "What are you going to do lure them into a little two on two and trap them when they score?"
"Something like that." Holly said flatly. "OK Kryten give them their orders."
Quickly the thousands of nanobots formed two thin fatty nets to ensnare Lister's off spring who were still running amuck.
When the two boys were finally ensnared by the legions of nanobots under Kryten's direction, the hard part started.
"Kryten you'll have to make an incision with the laser scalpel." Instructed Holly,
"Measure from the belly button three inches. Then cut approximately one quarter of an inch deep, in a diagonal direction towards the groin. Make the incision about six inches long."
Kryten hesitated. He was a mechanoid, he merely cleaned things, his limitation chip still pinging.
"I don't think that I can do this Holly." He explained.
"What do you mean that you can't go through with it?" Asked Rimmer.
"I paid good money to see blood and guts and I expect my money's worth!"
"Yea." added the Cat. "What he said."
"I don't think I can do it. My Limitation chip is threatening to shut me down as we speak." He stated. "I'm just a mechanoid. I just clean things."
"This is getting us nowhere," Holly thought. "There's only one alternative,
I'll have to zap him."
With that Holly sent several hundred volts, down a very narrow path, and temporarily parlayed Kryten's Limitation chip. With the mechanoid free of the restraints of the chip he was able to start the operation.
Kryten made the incision with one smooth sure cut. He ended it off with a little curl, like a smile.
The Cat had became suddenly very quiet and very ill. Rimmer wasn't far behind.
Kryten checked the monitor, he could see where the opening was made
in position to the netted boys. "What now Holly," he asked.
"Insert the retractors in place and open them up to their full setting.
Take the salad tongs and gently reach into the incision with them opened
about three point four inches apart. I'll watch it on the screen to make sure it's OK."
As Kryten followed the instructions the Cat definitely knew he was going to get sick, but he didn't want to let on in front of Rimmer. Rimmer felt the
same way, and regarded the Cat in the same manner.
"I think I have something," Kryten announced. And started to pull something or someone through the opening in LIster. Before the infant broke surface the Cat said, "I gotta go," with his hand over his mouth, and ran out of the Medi Bay operation theater.
When the small thrashing infant broke surface, struggling to free himself from his soft fatty net, Rimmer stood, smiled, saluted and fell to the floor without a sound.
Kryten removed the tiny body from it's netting, held him by his feet,
and with instructions from Holly he placed a clamp on the umbilical cord about two inches from the child's belly button, and severed it on the other side of the clamp. He then held the baby by his feet and slapped small Bexly on the bottom. The baby immediately started to cry.
And grow.
Kryten place him on Lister's upper chest, where his skin was exposed and
started digging for little James. After performing the same procedure with
his brother, the mechanoid placed him next to his twin. Once securing the babies he then covered both with a silver blanket, and started working on
sewing up Mr. Lister.
Shortly after regaining consciousness Lister gathered up the two babies in his arms and ran out of the Surgical Medi Bay. When he reached the outer corridor he stopped, posed and hollered to the walls.
"I know I can't see you and all that guff, but I'd like to introduce you to your two sons." Lister pointed with his chin, "this is Jim and this is Bexly. Oh come on boys stop crying. Say cheese."
With that Lister smiled a big tired grin and held it for several second.
Kryten came from the Medi Bay behind Lister.
"Sir you've just had major surgery, you shouldn't be up. Please hand them to me at once and return to your bed." Lister thought about arguing but a wave of fatigue swept over him as his adrenaline rush faded.
"Maybe your right Kryten. Here," he handed over the now quieted newborns. "If all works out my past self should have taken our photo."
Kryten walked Lister back to his bed before putting the twins in theirs."
Several hours later when Lister woke from a much needed nap, Kryten
served him something nourishing and started with the news.
"The boys are aging at an incredible rate. Holly guesses that it has something to do with them being conceived in another dimension."
"What can we do?" Lister asked in-between mouthfuls. The severity
of the situation not penetrating yet.
I suggest we place the boys in the stasis capsules to halt their growth." Said Kryten.
"What happens if we don't put them into stasis?" Lister asked.
At their current speed of growth I estimate that they're aging at approximately six years per earth day."
"Six years a day!" Lister yelled as foodstuff escaped as well as sound.
"I don't understand. Will they be my age by the weekend? Can we go out dancing?" Lister questioned his brow furrowed.
"No", said Kryten. "Don't you see, If they age that quickly, how will they learn anything. They'll have the bodies of adults, but the minds of infants. Can you imagine changing an eighteen year old?"
Lister's face was that of disgust.
"That's not the worst of it Mr. Lister."
"If that's not the worst of it then what is?"
If my calculations are correct the boys will be chronologically sixty in ten days, hence a hundred and twenty years old in twenty." Kryten hesitated. "At a best case scenario the boys would be over two hundred years old before the month's out. Older than any other human in history. Providing..."
"Providing what man?"
"Providing they survive that long." Finished Kryten.